Documents released by Snowden show the extent to which Microsoft helped the NSA and other security agencies in the US. "Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal; The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail; The company worked with the FBI this year to allow the NSA easier access via Prism to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which now has more than 250 million users worldwide; [...] Skype, which was bought by Microsoft in October 2011, worked with intelligence agencies last year to allow Prism to collect video of conversations as well as audio; Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a 'team sport'." Wow. Just wow.

'We need information on these people, and we have a court order that says you have to give it to us.' Will you then at that point tell the government to go f themselves, thereby possibly having your company sued into oblivion and perhaps getting yourself arrested in the process? No, probably not.

So we shouldn't really be upset with tech companies when they co-operate with, say, China or Russia to spy on their own citizens or other countries?